Olympics: South Korea's Lee Myung-bak pushes 2018 bid in snowy Pyeongchang

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak flew to Pyeongchang on Tuesday to push the mountain resort's campaign to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.  

The resort, still shovelling its way out of the heaviest snow in years, is hoping it will be third time lucky when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meets in July to choose between Germany's Munich, France's Annecy and Pyeongchang.   

Lee met the IOC's evaluation commission headed by Sweden's Gunilla Lindberg, which is beginning its review of the bid. 

The president, whose predecessor's push for Pyeongchang's bid for the 2014 Games backfired, has been more measured in his backing for the scenic resort ahead of key political events, including parliamentary and presidential elections next year.   

"President Lee hopes to stress the need to move away from the focus on Europe and North America as hosts of the Winter Olympics,; his office said in a statement.   

Asia has hosted only two Winter Games -- at the Japanese resort of Sapporo (1972) and Nagano (1998) -- prompting some critics to call for a rotation system among continents as soccer's governing body FIFA does.   

Lee has faced weak political support from the province of Gangwon, a rugged mountain region home to Pyeongchang and other resorts, and is seen as holding a bias to the country's central region and its capital, Seoul, which he had served as mayor.  

Gangwon lost a major campaigner when the country's Supreme Court upheld a guilty verdict last month against its Governor Lee Kwang-jae on bribery charges, pushing him from office.   

But the campaign has had a strong backing from top business leaders, with the chairman of Korean Air, Cho Yang-ho, heading the bid committee and Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee making the case for Pyeongchang as an IOC member.   

The region was upbeat about its bid and made the point of using the heavy snowfall from the weekend to showcase how efficiently it would be able to get things done by clearing the resort grounds and access routes.